


When I go you know you can't follow me into the darkness

by jamesisnotonheaven



Series: The Last of Us: into Didi's-verse [2]
Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Early April 2038, Ellie is a bean, F/F, God gave me emotions and this is how I cope with them, Hurt, Is there comfort? I dont know, Not Beta Read, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, she should have bean protected
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:47:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25732327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamesisnotonheaven/pseuds/jamesisnotonheaven
Summary: Ellie killed Nora at the hospital, but maybe she lost a part of her there too. Her violent actions at the hospital leave her shocked and she fears what she's becoming.
Relationships: Dina/Ellie (The Last of Us), Ellie & Joel (The Last of Us)
Series: The Last of Us: into Didi's-verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1866550
Kudos: 28





	When I go you know you can't follow me into the darkness

The face she saw when she passed by windows didn’t resemble her. The girl looked tired, she had bags under her eyes, her hair was a mess and there was blood splattered all over her.

Ellie didn’t believe in ghosts, but she sure as hell looked like one.

She could still feel the cold metal from the pipe on her hand, could still hear the sound it made against Nora’s head. She felt sick. She could hear her coughing because of the spores, breathing becoming increasingly harder for her.

_"Where's Abby?" It was a question, but her tone was almost demanding as she paced in from of Nora._

_"You're breathing spores. You're her."_

_Nora knew who she was. The dots started to connect in her mind._

_"You Firefly?"_

_"There are no Fireflies anymore," she kept her broken arm close to her body, her voice strained with pain, her eyes scared._

_Ellie kept walking, Nora's pipe now in her hand._

The rain felt cold on her face when she left the hospital, though it didn’t do much to clean her. She felt dirty, inside out.

The walk back to the Theater was uneventful. She sneaked around the few runners she encountered, not trusting herself to hold a gun with her shaking hands. They walked helplessly in a few buildings, always holding their heads and moaning.

Things could be better now.

She hesitated outside the entrance, the yellow glow of the window above her illuminating her bloody hands. Ellie tried to collect herself, to calm down, to steady her hands in a fist.

But she was still shaking when it hit the door.

“Hey,” Dina didn’t take long to open the door, hugging Ellie as soon as she saw her. She didn’t have the strength to do more than let herself be hugged, let herself be led inside. "Are you okay?"

She nodded, once. Her mind was racing, and she felt lightheaded. She could see the worry in Dina’s face, and then on Jesse’s. She knew how she looked like. The blank face, staring at the distance. Numb. 

“Christ. Is that your blood?” Jesse was quick on his feet, searching for wounds on her. She didn’t answer.

He would never find them.

She could hear Nora’s scared voice before they fell on the spores. How she tried to negotiate at that moment, desperate.

Ellie shook the whole time as she reached into her back pocket, picking the city map. She ignored Dina and Jesse’s exchange above her head.

"She's hiding out in the... in this aquarium,” she barely pointed, her hands leaving bloody prints on the edges.

"Okay. Come on." Dina’s hands on her arm were soft, caring. Steady. Strong as she led her to the back of the building. She handed the map to Jesse. "Let's get you cleaned up."

She didn’t feel herself walking, she just was. She felt as if she was a ghost, hovering behind Dina, haunting her. And then she was sitting on a stool, her backpack at her feet and she couldn’t stop. She couldn’t stop the shaking or the images in her head.

Ellie tried to control her breathing, tried to calm herself down. She did that. Oh shit, she did that to Nora. She felt like a cracked part of her broke. 

That wasn’t a killing for survival, that was different.

_"Where's Abby?" She asked again._

_"I'm fucking dead anyway. Why would I tell you anything?"_

_Ellie rested the pipe on the ground, squatting so their eyes were on the same level. She remembered Abby, standing over Joel with the golfing stick, remembered his cries of pain, and the memory clawed its way from her chest, tearing her heart and making her see red._

_"Because I can make it quick. Or I can make it so much worse," Nora only sobbed and shook her head._

Dina came back with a bucket of water.

“Arms up,” Dina said, and her voice was soft, like she was afraid she might scare her. Ellie felt her hands on her T-shirt, helping her pulling it off, but she couldn’t look into her eyes.

She could see Nora’s eyes, angry at her, at Joel.

_"Think about what he did. How many people are dead because of him?"_

__**How many people were dead because of her?** _ _

_"It's your last chance." She was towering over Nora now, her hand gripping the pipe hard, knuckles white under the blood._

_"I'm not giving up my friend," and her voice was surprisingly strong._

Ellie felt Dina moving, sitting behind her, a comforting hand laying on her neck for a moment. She heard her picking a piece of cloth and dipping it into the bucket before touching her skin. She didn’t feel the rag on her wounds as Dina cleaned the dried blood. It was almost as if she was incorporeal, like this body wasn’t hers. Everything was numb. 

She could only imagine the ugly patchwork of cuts, bruises and abrasions that formed her back right now.

She didn’t care. 

She could see herself putting the chair on the door, making sure they wouldn’t be interrupted.

She wasn’t sure when she started crying, but she felt the warm streak of tears on her cheek, her lip trembling, and she couldn’t stifle the sob that escaped her mouth.

"I made her talk." It's the first thing she said since they left Jesse. It's easier to speak when she can't see Dina's eyes.

But saying it out loud only makes it more real. Realization hit her, the fog of shock that was clouding her mind dissipating a little. 

_There was so much anger and hatred inside her._

_She swung the pipe, and it hit Nora's face, hard. She coughed, spitting blood on the ground._

_So much hurt and frustration and pain._

_Ellie swung again, this time the blood splattering all over her front._

_And again, until Nora was no more._

Ellie gasped, covering her mouth with her bloody hands. Nora’s blood.

"Hey...it's okay," Dina’s voice was soft, comforting. She wrapped her hands around Ellie’s body, resting her chin on her shoulder.

Dina felt warm. Alive.

Ellie held the hand Dina put around her shoulder, the one that was closer to her heart.

“I don’t want to lose you.” Her voice sounded far on her ears, but it was true. She wanted this to be over, and she wanted Dina with her at the end of it all. Dina squeezed her gently.

“Good.” She kissed the skin between her shoulders and neck, and it helped grounding her. She was there, at the Theater, with Dina. 

She didn’t deserve it.

Ellie couldn’t find sleep that night, laying beside Dina in the narrow sofa, their noses only centimeters away. Seeing Dina in her peaceful sleep made her more conscious of how she could not do that. Sleep as if she hadn’t done anything.

So Ellie quietly stood up and sat on the ground watching her asleep girlfriend, digging through her backpack until she found her notebook and the pencil.

She sketched Dina, the curve of her neck, the shape of her lips and the waves of her dark hair. The tiny freckles on her cheeks, her nose and closed eyes. Her heart almost calmed then, in this moment when the only sound was her pencil on the paper and their breathing. In this moment when she’d focus so much on the task at hand she almost forgot.

Almost forgot Joel was gone, almost forgot Nora was too.

She was just so tired.

All around Dina’s sleeping face were moths.

She tried to draw Joel, even though it hurt. His face was imprinted on her brain, his greying beard, that sarcastic smile they shared. She couldn’t draw his eyes, so she crossed them out. 

Ellie missed him, how his voice softened when he called her “kiddo”, the way she found his presence comforting. Even the bitter smell of his coffee. She longed for the path of forgiveness they started walking together, and she almost wished she believed in ghosts, just to see him again.

So she quietly walked out to the stage where she left the guitar down. It was weird to touch it, because it reminded her of him in a way that was painful. It was the thing that tethered them together now, and she thought about that day when he told her he wanted to be singer. He could have been. He should have been. She breathed in, the musty smell of the chairs, and plucked softly at the strings.

If I ever were to lose you  
I'd surely lose myself  
Everything I have found here  
I've not found by myself

To remember him was painful. It felt like the memories were cutting a hole on her chest, weighing her down. It burned through her gut, and it made her angry, it made her sad. It _physically_ hurt more than when she gave herself the chemical burn. Hell, it hurt more than when Riley died, because then she thought she would die with her best-friend, but now it just felt like they stole a part of her. She wanted to cry but mostly she wanted peace.

She went back a few pages on her notebook, to those first days when Joel’s death was fresh on her memory and revenge burned hot on her heart, to the song she started. To the lyrics she was scribbling since they left Jackson, slowly writing itself.

I walk through the valley of the shadow of death  
And I fear no evil because I'm blind to it all  
And my mind and my gun they comfort me  
Because I know I'll kill my enemies when they come

Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life  
And I will dwell on this earth forever more  
Said, I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul  
But I can't walk on the path of the right because I'm wrong

Well I came upon a man at the top of a hill  
Called himself the savior of the human race  
Said he come to save the world from destruction and pain  
But I said, "How can you save the world from itself?"

And then she finished the lyrics, writing the last strophe.

Because I walk through the valley of the shadow of death  
And I fear no evil because I'm blind  
I walk beside the still waters and they restore my soul  
But I know when I die my soul is damned

Her skin hurt.

**Author's Note:**

> Do I only write fiction based on songs? No, but it certainly looks like it lmao  
> The lyrics is of the song Through the Valley by Shawn James.  
> I hope you guys enjoy it! :)


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